Bleed
by Memphis Lupine
Summary: A wolf-demon and a hunter of demons share a meal. Very mild Kouga/Sango. [Vignette.]


Bleed  
  
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"Aren't you going to eat, bitch?" he asked, tone more or less disinterested though his lupine eyes glowed eerily at her. "Dead enough for your human tongue?" and the wolf-demon nudged the haunch of something mauled to the edge of recognition. A thin stream of blood spurted from the neck, where the fluids had pooled; pulled by forces binding the earth to the shallow dip, bunching and discoloring the naked skin to a mottled maroon, the stream showed no signs of slowing as the body drained.  
  
"Thank you," she muttered, refusing to acknowledge his smug expression. "I'm fine with it the way it is." Moving forward onto her knees, she peeled a sliver of the exposed muscle from the creature (a demon?) and gingerly stuck in her mouth, testing it for any bitter flavors, anything dangerous. Copper taints of blood, and she chewed forcefully at it, fighting with the durable texture. "Kirara, eat," she said, muffled, and nodded grimly at him.  
  
The slender demon mewled, once, in a dubious fashion, before hunger overruled her suspicions. Daintily, quickly, she darted over the cave floor, pouncing from the dented armor of Sango's shoulder to the bleeding carcass. She made a small sound of pleasure and bit her canines deep into the neck, near the gash rupturing blood over the stones.  
  
"Have a name?" he asked bluntly, licking at the dark blood coating his hands. "You don't have the dog turd's smell," he sniffed experimentally at her, his eyes shading red briefly with hatred at the thought of his appointed rival. (Men, she thought sardonically, then bit deep into a new strip of the raw meat.) He added dismissively, "Don't care."  
  
About what? she thought, but settled with forcing down the stiff meat. "Sango," she answered. He glanced up from the neck (she supposed she should have felt queasy at his dagger teeth gnashing at the dead flesh, but was not), trickles of red on his chin. She raised an eyebrow at him, lips turning to a sour expression. "With all the time you spend trying to seduce Kagome, I'm surprised you haven't got all our names written down."  
  
"I can't write," he shrugged, and grinned sharply, knowing that was not what she meant. "And if that f-ckin' dog turd didn't keep shoving his weak nose in the way, I wouldn't have to." His hands (constantly busy ripping and tearing chunks of flesh and muscle and fat from the neck, back, abdomen; she thought he was suddenly gluttonous with the lack of others in his pack around to feed) brought a dripping piece of the creature to his mouth; as if punishing it in place of Inuyasha, he bit savagely. "Halfbreed dog shit," he snapped, viciously, and lifting his chin up (head tilting back slightly) chomped once, twice, three times and swallowed.  
  
"Maybe you're too confident," she pointed out, not really caring; Kirara nuzzled her small face deeper into the neck, pulling a cord of some sort out and chewing uselessly at it before spitting. "Have you ever thought maybe Kagome doesn't want you?" She jerked a large slab of meat off, hesitating as she realized she had nothing to cut it into easier bites.  
  
Claws (much, much sharper and animalistic than Inuyasha's, she noted dully) dug swiftly into the meat in her hands, and the other rough hand (larger, angrier, nearly a paw) closed around her windpipe. Kirara was on her feet instantly, ears flipping back tight to her skull and sharp teeth bared in a hiss as she prepared to slide in a hurry of growth; the small demon stayed still, though, in warning, as the hand/paw was nearly relaxed around her mistress' throat, the claw tips only slightly pressing in the soft skin near the thin ridges of her spinal column.  
  
"I could kill you before you blinked, bitch," he snapped, and she could nearly see his jaw extending, tiny pinpoints of darkness fletching out from his wrists (how many of his kind had she killed, how many wolf-demons, how many Kougas? terrifying and weak and able to switch between man and beast and man again...); "I *would* kill you if you said anything like that again. Do you know how easy it would be?" (Fangs sliding, portruding just a bit more, as his face started to change to lupine darkness.)  
  
His hand squeezed around her neck.  
  
Shit, she thought as Kirara shifted from a furious mewl to a feline spat. Her much larger mouth clamped around his shoulder, piercing the hollow between neck and shoulder, part of the chest cavity, upper arm, and he made a gruff howling sound. A moment later, Sango was on her back, skull pounding mercilessly at banging the floor, staring at the ceiling as small dark sunbursts populated her vision. With a protective hiss, Kirara (smaller again, and not half as threatening) curled up on her chest, glaring with dark eyes at Kouga.  
  
"Bitch," he spat pettily, and nursed the blood welling from his chest before lifting his bloodied hand and absently licking at it. "F-cking bitch." He narrowed his wolf eyes at her, his features once again man, and watched her carefully as she sat up. Sango narrowed her eyes right back at him, challenge for challenge; he grinned a nasty, suddenly good-humored twist of fangs and healthy gums at her. "But a f-cking brave bitch. Want more?" He resumed ripping into the dead flesh.  
  
(How, she wondered with astonishment and anger, could he go from murderous to edged humor in a matter of seconds? He was - she thought with grim amusement - even more primitive than violent Inuyasha and philandering Miroku.)  
  
Glancing down at the abandoned meat at her ankles, red wellings where his claws had left gaping holes in the muscle-flesh, she smiled humorlessly. "Have something sharp to cut it with?" she replied, and smiled a bit gentler at Kirara as she moved to bite off small pieces helpfully. She had a brief, inexplicable mental image of the Tetsusaiga being used as a knife and shook her head.  
  
He looked at her with frank curiosity, tilting his head slightly as his slitted eyes stared unblinkingly; he sucked thoughtfully at a blood-stained claw and said, "Look for a sharp rock." With that done, he reached back to the carcass and peeled off a heavy strip of dark pink, suckling the blood out before swallowing it in a few snaps of his jaw. "You ought to be able to find a lot in here; you aren't f-ckin' helpless." Kouga gave her a waspish look.  
  
"You aren't very helpful," she retorted under her breath and the sharp edges to his ears twitched. His expression turned ugly. "Rock, sharp rock--thank you, Kirara." Sango nodded, smiling kindly, and turned back to the paling meat, blood slowly seeping out of it.   
  
"I'm being too nice to you," he said thoughtfully as she stabbed the point into the meat, preparing to saw at it. "I'd like to eat you; it'd make it easier tracking my pack down without your dead weight following me. Your friends would forget you and I wouldn't have to hunt for meat for another few days." He grinned, slowly and darkly, and carefully took the blood from his palms into his mouth as he watched her, lmost craftily (like a wolf, like a bad, hungry wolf).  
  
"Why would I let you?" she retorted, hiding her unease and feeling as though she wouldn't be able to eat the meat anymore. "Why do you think you could?"  
  
He nodded, slowly, in a curious manner, and cupping his hands to the floor, began laboriously scooping up the spreading blood.  
  
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Notes: Eh, a scene stuck in my head. Couldn't find a way to work around my various projects to flesh it out, so it's a perpetual vignette - I doubt I'll have the time to turn it into a viable multiparter or even a halfway decent one-shot. Anyway! As for continuity, I think this pretty much screws it over. Or, um, something like that. Manga-verse. Feedback is appreciated, y'know.  
  
Disclaimer: Everyone belongs to Takahashi, but not to me. Various companies and whatnot have the rights. I, again, did not. 


End file.
